$700 An Hour????
August 19th, 2008 by Evil Beet
That’s what just ONE of the lawyers in Britney Spears’ custody battle cost.
$700 an hour!
And Stacy Phillips is claiming Britney hasn’t paid the $338,414.87 she’s owed for just a couple months of work. That number is after courtesy deductions and $75K she expects to receive next month. Britney’s camp is balking at the number, but Stacy says because she handled all the conservatorship stuff, her legal work was very complex and took up a lot of hours.
BUT $700 AN HOUR???! For a child custody case?
Jesus Christ, is she turning Sean and Jayden into solid gold? What the hell is ANYBODY doing for $700 an hour? That’s more than Tara Reid paid her plastic surgeon. Clearly I need to go to law school.
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August 19th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Um, this wasn’t just a child custody case. This was about getting a psycho coked up whore off the street. Britney put Laura Wasser through so much grief she should just turn over her entire bank account, because nothing can make up for those missed court dates and proving herself the worst client in the history of litigation.
August 19th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
MW is right. The amount is so high because her conservatorship is complicated. Its not just about the kids.
August 19th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
They totally should have charged more, long azz complicated case!
August 19th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Beet, do not, I repeat, do NOT go to law school. 99.9% of us will never make $700/ hour! And you are worth way more than that for making me laugh all day anyway!!!
August 19th, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Ok does the kid have both cigs and a lighter?
August 19th, 2008 at 6:39 pm
MW speaks the truth *gag*. The case taking so long was mostly Brit’s fault.
Maybe she should invest her money wisely in the future.
August 19th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Yep, that is a load of $$ but actually not so unusual for hourly rates. Partners at big-city firms are generally charging $500-$1,000 per hour now, and even more junior workers bill quite high. Heck, you can have 4 yrs work experience with just a B.A. and have a billing rate of $300/hr…
August 19th, 2008 at 8:03 pm
I paid 450.00 an hour for my custody battle 3 years ago. I live in the Los Angeles area and I’m a nurse who was making about 70,000 a year at the time. My ex was/ is a millionaire. So these are the going rates for the area. He paid 75 per cent of my bill I paid the rest. Cost me over 120,000. Had to refinance my house to pay my share of the bill. So if one partner has a high profile attorney the other party needs to get one to win the case. It was worth it for me in the long run.
August 19th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
beet i was totally making $700 an hour about 3 years ago, but i can’t go into the details because my daughter reads this blog sometimes! plus i’m totally bullshitting, i made that much a couple times, but usually it was closer to like $400. . .
August 19th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
attorneys in new york bill about 700 an hour… not to say they actually get paid that. the firm they work for bills the attorney for that much…. and then of course partners at law firms are billed at 1000 an hour if not more.
August 20th, 2008 at 9:10 am
The quotes from King Henry VI are amongst Shakespeare’s most famous including
‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’. - (Act IV, Scene II).
Maybe killing them would be a little extreme, but certainly there should be some legislation that allows the common Joe and Jane to have one and not have to sell a child to pay the bill.
THEY ARE NOT ALL LIKE BRITNEY’S LAWYER! Which should provide some comfort. My bankruptcy lawyer, when he found out I only had $23.00 in the bank said, “You can’t afford my fees, would you like to trade me one of your paintings for the job?” (I am an artist.) I did and he did his job well. I will be ever grateful. Thank God for people who still are connected to the real world.
August 21st, 2008 at 11:40 pm
I would give my spouse pretty much whatever they wanted before I’d pay some scum sucking life draining ass of a lawyer $700/hr. Maybe $150/hr. Maybe. “Humm, let see, I went to school for 5 or 6 years now I can legally rape anyone I want, financially” Eff-off and die you low life pigs.